~ More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.

~ The cost of public assistance to families of workers in the fast-food industry is nearly $7 billion per year. At an average of $3.9 billion per year, spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) accounts for more than half ofthese costs.

~Due to low earnings, fast-food workers’ families also receive an annual average of $1.04 billion in food stamp benefits and $1.91 billion in Earned Income Tax Credit payments.

~ People working in fast-food jobs are more likely to live in or near poverty. One in five families with a member holding a fast-food job has an income below the poverty line, and 43 percent have an income two times the federal poverty level or less.

~Even full-time hours are not enough to compensate for low wages. The families of more than half of the fast-food workers employed 40 or more hours per week are enrolled in public assistance programs.

This week, the news broke that JPMorgan is on the verge of reaching a settlement with the Department of Justice for the biggest bank penalty in U.S. history: $13 billion for mortgage lending abuses allegedly committed during the housing crisis.

But as this story makes waves in the media, one thing has mostly gone unnoticed: Taxpayers could end up underwriting more than $4.5 billion of the settlement. That's because JPMorgan is likely to claim the settlement for wrongdoing as a deduction from their taxes.

This week, the news broke that JPMorgan is on the verge of reaching a settlement with the Department of Justice for the biggest bank penalty in U.S. history: $13 billion for mortgage lending abuses allegedly committed during the housing crisis.

But as this story makes waves in the media, one thing has mostly gone unnoticed: Taxpayers could end up underwriting more than $4.5 billion of the settlement. That's because JPMorgan is likely to claim the settlement for wrongdoing as a deduction from their taxes.

It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government.

It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.

Yeah, I support an increase in the minimum wage, but let's understand some history. We may be "subsidizing" these businesses, but it's a subsidy began more out of government policy changes in the welfare state.

Welfare reform, starting in the 1990s, resulted in many people on various welfare programs taking low wage jobs, such as working at fast food joints, hotels, big box stores, etc. It was during the 1990s that such businesses began to dump students from the workforce. Students are notoriously unreliable, but people who need some government assistance and who needed a job to get it would show up. For many people these were jobs they wanted. They felt they were contributing to society and learning new skills. Most people don't want to be leeches on society. They want to work, but they may still need assistance.

In a sense, welfare reform provided guaranteed source of labor for low-skilled work. A flood of low-skilled workers meant there was some downward pressure on wages in low-skilled areas. The antidote is to continually increase the minimum wage.

Donald wrote:For many people these were jobs they wanted. They felt they were contributing to society and learning new skills.

Do you have evidence of this, or is it just something you tell yourself so you can sleep better?

Sounds a whole lot like a big money talking point to me.

Hardly. I sleep fine because I help these folks find jobs.

You seem to buy into the myth of the "welfare queen." I've never met anyone who wants to just take a handout for nothing. People have more self-respect than that. When people apply for benefits from the government, they are usually homeless or close to it, or their children are hungry. They are desperate, yet they have some stigma associated with applying because they really do feel they should be doing this for themselves.

Every job, including the ones you seem to look down on, has worth to the person doing it. You seem to value this work about as much as the corporate big money folks, though. Sad.

I work with people who get government benefits. I can tell you that most would much rather pay their own way, but many lack the skills to get a job that pays a living wage in this economy. They work hard at low-skill positions.

They take the best of what's available that will work out for their lives. Some of these people probably could get better paying jobs with enough time for training and education, but there are other considerations they have: scheduling, transportation, medical issues, child care, parent care, etc. When you look at a whole person and consider the totality of their lives, you come to understand that they mostly make rational choices, and that includes taking part-time low-wage positions.

It would be great if we could get the minimum wage bumped up to a living wage. I'd be for that. It would take away some of the need for government benefits.

Don't forget that for a lot of people a job is a money source, period. They want a job where they know exactly what they're asked to do, they can do it without getting injured, and then they go home and forget about it until their next shift. All this stuff about loving your job, making it part of your identity, thinking up ways to advance (so you'll have to work harder or longer?), or trying to do it better than the person next to you is a layer of thinking not part of all jobs and not part of all people's lives. A job can be perfectly dignified and "meaningful" (whatever that is) without it.

A guranteed minimum income, probably by changing the income tax formula to allow sub-zero brackets at the bottom, would maybe tighten up the labor market really quick. We all know there are people out there who don't want to work; it may cost the economy less in the long run simply to cut them a check for 125% of the federal poverty level once a month.

There was a saying back in the Depression that a hobo is someone out of work looking for it, a tramp is someone who only works if you force them and a bum is someone who won't work at all. The latter two categories don't want to be in the way of other job seekers, and I am sure the feeling is mutual. The last 12 years we basically had World War III and that didn't work as a sink for all of the excess labor like the other two did, I guess that trick is off the menu, which is just as well.

npler wrote:A guranteed minimum income, probably by changing the income tax formula to allow sub-zero brackets at the bottom, would maybe tighten up the labor market really quick. We all know there are people out there who don't want to work; it may cost the economy less in the long run simply to cut them a check for 125% of the federal poverty level once a month.

There was a saying back in the Depression that a hobo is someone out of work looking for it, a tramp is someone who only works if you force them and a bum is someone who won't work at all. The latter two categories don't want to be in the way of other job seekers, and I am sure the feeling is mutual. The last 12 years we basically had World War III and that didn't work as a sink for all of the excess labor like the other two did, I guess that trick is off the menu, which is just as well.

they at least tried the trick in question twice and it blew up in their face both times -- a more proportional and effective dealing with afghanistan would have been to have the c i a , mossad, egyptian mukhabarat, f s b , d g s e , bundesnachrictendienst &c put their heads together, and if they reliably located bin laden within a 10 km circle, just carpet-bomb the place with thermobaric munitions and incendiaries and ask questions later.

saddam hussein was a problem, but his weapons of mass destruction were long gone and he was bloviating for domestic consumption and to cow iran. maybe they should have released 10 per cent of the frozen iranian assets as a contract fee if they got someone to use a purpose-built device built into an award plaque to x-ray him to death, knock him down by hitting him in the head with a fire extinguisher and shoot him up with that south african e coli-clostridium perfringens hybrid, ebola, anthrax, or 1918 spanish flu, spike his coffee with samarium 153, or shoot him in the head with a cyanide-tipped bullet. bush didn't give a damn what people thought anyways. he and putin could have been hell on wheels together if the above situation were not the case. iran could have probably killed him (hussein) with a missile for a shipping container full of euros or gold bars or something.

my original solution for the iraq situation was to have a body double of jörg haider go visit saddam hussein in his office and shoot him with a sawed-off shotgun with a shell filled with radium pellets and a roll of dimes down the barrel. the agent also could have given him a doughnut full of scopolamine and flunitrazempam and either wrapped his whole head in duct tape or defenestrated him from a 30-storey building shortly thereafter. minimal cost. using war as an element of economic policy sure aint what it used to be, which suits me just fine.

if they ever have anyone with the guts to do it, they probably are going to have to whack a bunch of people in pakistan from the army, air force, i s i , and friends. they should keep that fire extinguisher thing in mind -- it might even be more effective than using a drone.

This is the question the Right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want do you want a low minimum wage because you cannot have both. If Coronel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I for one is getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.